<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Reach by aecusfalcon</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27845974">Reach</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/aecusfalcon/pseuds/aecusfalcon'>aecusfalcon</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Destiny (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dialogue Heavy, M/M, Nightmares, Osiris hates that the traveler is sending him visions now, Pining, Questionable Lore Bits, Speaker Osiris AU, Vaguely between Arrivals and Hunt, Visions and Dreams, as they always do, canon is a sandbox and i am a child, meddling ghosts, now betad, saint and osiris are just dancing around the obvious at this point</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 21:40:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,304</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27845974</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/aecusfalcon/pseuds/aecusfalcon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Osiris dreams he is a bird.<br/>His wings are silver and imbued with light as he coasts along cosmic radiation, using it as an updraft to keep himself aloft.<br/>He’s distinctly aware he is running away from something.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Osiris/Saint-14 (Destiny)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>55</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Denial</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>I.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>Osiris has a headache. One would think that after dying and being reforged in light one would never have to deal with headaches again. Yet here he is, nursing a headache that seems to be bordering on a migraine.</p><p>“Sagira,” he says softly, not a demand but a request, and up pops his little light from below his feet.</p><p>“Again, Osiris? You know, I’m starting to wonder if your age is finally catching up to you.”</p><p>He hums in appreciation as he feels the cool balm of light wash over him. “Nonsense.”</p><p>“This is your fifth headache this week and the week started just three days ago. And obviously I can’t patch it up if it keeps happening anyways. You should talk to someone about it.”</p><p>“Who could I talk to that would know what’s wrong? Who could possibly help me?”</p><p>“I don’t know. Ikora? Saint? They’re the closest thing to a support system you have, you know.”</p><p>“I don’t think they can help whatever this is.”</p><p>Sagira sighs, “Whatever you say, I still think you should talk to someone.”</p><p> </p><p>Osiris dreams he is a bird. </p><p>His wings are silver and imbued with light as he coasts along cosmic radiation, using it as an updraft to keep himself aloft.</p><p>He’s distinctly aware he is running away from something.</p><p>He scans the ground below him, metal forests and hardened mud. The pines prick at his feathers as he maneuvers through them.</p><p>Osiris stops when he spots what he knew he was looking for.</p><p>A nest of chicks, abandoned and alone and so very afraid.</p><p>He slows and observes the chicks for a moment in the air.</p><p>He hears the beating wings of something larger, something dangerous, and he makes his decision.</p><p>He flies to the nest, pushing the chicks under himself and shielding them with his wings.</p><p>The predator claws at him, he does not flinch. He rises, talons scratching at the Thing’s wings, screeching, his razor sharp beak stabbing into it.</p><p>It flies away and he collapses over the chicks. They are barely alive. They need food to survive.</p><p>He does the only thing he can do.</p><p>He offers them his flesh.</p><p>“Eat of me and you will survive.” He says.</p><p> </p><p>He’s dragged out of his sleep when his ship lurches.</p><p>He blinks, vision blurry as he grabs onto the controls of his ship. “Sagira,” he scolds when he notices they’re close to the city, “I thought I said I have far more pressing matters to handle.”</p><p>“Like what? Mercury isn’t safe anymore - not that it ever was - and you’ve been sleeping in this ship more than <em> doing</em>.”</p><p>Osiris can’t really come up with a solid argument against that, so he simply scoffs.</p><p>Sagira rolls her eye the best she can to show how exasperated she is.</p><p>He’s technically still exiled, but that hasn’t stopped him in recent years from visiting. He’s wary, admittedly, of visiting the tower.</p><p>In the Infinite Forest, the only sounds he had to deal with was gunfire and the sweet harmony of vex technology humming in his ear. It was consistent and repetitive enough that his brain had learned to ignore.</p><p>In the tower, however, there is no such thing. Muffled voices from conversations he’s not part of, the sound of power tools, flags flapping in the wind, chaotic and discordant.</p><p>They aren’t sensations he’s used to anymore.</p><p>At least, that’s what he tells himself, when his thoughts drift to why he avoids the tower.</p><p>The truth behind that excuse is very simple.</p><p>He is scared.</p><p> </p><p>When Osiris transmats into the tower’s hangar, he stands, uncertainly, at the edge looking over the city. His gaze turns skyward, to the broken god in their sky. He recalls those… Centuries? Millennia? He’s not really sure anymore how long ago it was for him with time moving differently in the Forest. He remembers how he rebuked that god, how he swore that all the Traveler has brought them was pain.</p><p>He wants to be wrong.</p><p>His head aches again.</p><p>“Osiris?” He hears from behind, and he freezes.</p><p>Ah.</p><p>That’s another reason he’s been avoiding the tower.</p><p>“Saint.” He acknowledges, but he does not turn around.</p><p>He hears Saint’s heavy boots hitting the floor as he approaches, then he dares a glance when Saint stands at his side.</p><p>Sometimes he forgets how much taller than him Saint is.</p><p>“I have to admit when I first came back, I was not expecting the Traveler to look like <em> that</em>. I thought, <em> by the light! Who broke the Traveler?</em>” Saint laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. “I would have to break whoever did it. Come to find out our friend already did.”</p><p>“Yes,” Osiris admits, “In my… <em>prophecies</em>, I hadn’t actually expected the Traveler to awaken. It was just one of many possibilities.”</p><p>“No. You have a thick head.”</p><p>Osiris grunts in annoyance, but he smiles to himself, nonetheless.</p><p>“What are you doing here?”</p><p>Osiris turns his attention back to the city, “I am… wandering, without purpose. Now that... <em> Everything </em> is happening. I needed a break. The City is as much of a sanctuary for me as it is a home for other guardians.”</p><p>“Other guardians…”</p><p>“I’m still exiled, Saint.”</p><p>Saint lets out a dissatisfied sound, “Ridiculous. Father was too rash in his actions. You were too. But exile was not the right way.”</p><p>“I made my choices and he made his. Either way, the City has never felt like a home to me. I’m more useful out there.”</p><p>“Will you ever think of a place as home?”</p><p>“No,” he says. <em> Not a place, but perhaps a person, </em> he does not say.</p><p>“Osiris has a headache,” Sagira interrupts.</p><p>Osiris grimaces.</p><p>“A headache? This is true?”</p><p>“It’s not an issue.”</p><p>“I keep healing him but it keeps coming back, so I don’t know what’s up with that.”</p><p>“Osiris,” Saint’s tone is scolding and Osiris wants to jump back into his ship and handle this on his own like he does everything.</p><p>“<em> And </em> he’s been having weird dreams. I thought we should stop by Ikora and see if there’s anything that can be done.”</p><p>“Osiris, look at me,” Saint places a hand on Osiris’ shoulder, his head tilted slightly to the side.</p><p>Osiris looks.</p><p>“You will tell me these dreams you are having.”</p><p>Osiris does.</p><p> </p><p>They sit in the Gray Pigeon, Saint’s helmet is off, resting by his feet. He’s hunched over, his chin resting on the back of his interlocked hands, a pensive look on his face.</p><p>Or… as pensive as an Exo’s face <em> can </em> be.</p><p>“Troubling.” He says, breaking the long silence that followed Osiris’ explanation.</p><p>“I know.” Osiris says.</p><p>“How long?”</p><p>“Since the pyramid ships arrived. At least… That’s when the headaches started. The dreams are new.”</p><p>“Is it the same dream?”</p><p>“No, and yes. Sometimes I dream I am something else but it’s always the same. I find something helpless, I protect them, I sacrifice myself..”</p><p>Saint turns his eyes to Sagira, she makes a shrugging motion, “Don't look at me, I’m not the one giving him dreams.”</p><p>“That is not what I suggest. Osiris, have you given thought that these could be-”</p><p>“Visions? Perish the thought.”</p><p>“No, I think Saint has a point. Didn’t the Speaker have lots of headaches?”</p><p>Osiris recalls.</p><p> </p><p></p><blockquote>
  <p>“Speaker, I have new reports that—“ he stops mid sentence when he notices that the lights in the Speaker's office are off. And that his mask is off. He quickly averts his eyes and clears his throat only partially embarrassed. “Apologies, is this a bad time?”</p>
  <p>The Speaker is still turned away, facing the Traveler through the window. He picks his mask up from his desk and places it on his face before turning around to face Osiris. “No.”</p>
  <p>Osiris is quiet for a moment before he speaks, “Something concerns you?”</p>
  <p>“You’re better at reading me than I would care to admit, my son.”</p>
  <p>“I can help.” Always so quick to help, so quick to busy himself with fixing others problems so he never had to worry about his own.</p>
  <p>“I am afraid you cannot,” the Speaker says. He stands from his chair and to the window, arms held behind his back as his head shifts upwards. “I have a headache.”</p>
  <p>“A headache?”</p>
  <p>“The Traveler… when it sends me visions it leaves me sore.”</p>
  <p>Osiris doesn’t respond. His eyes gaze wearily up to that great orb obstructing the view of the rest of the city and the mountains behind. “It doesn’t sound so <em> benevolent </em> if it’s giving you headaches.”</p>
  <p>The Speaker chuckles warmly, “you’ve learned much from Felwinter and Nerwin. And yet you know so little of the Traveler, the very thing that Rose you.”</p>
  <p>“Existential philosophy was never my strong suit. I see problems happening in the now and I find which path would be best to fix said problems.”</p>
  <p>“I see,” he says thoughtfully, “now, what was the news?”</p>
</blockquote><p> </p><p>“Absolutely not,” Osiris says in the present. “That’s <em> ludicrous</em>. The Speaker was the last Speaker and as far as I can tell it <em> stayed </em> that way.”</p><p>Saint shrugs, “Was only a suggestion.”</p><p>“We <em> both </em> studied under the Speaker. You would have the same chance as… being chosen by the Traveler like that as I do, if not more so. You considered him your father.”</p><p>“You forget, Osiris. I was father’s blade and shield. You were his pen.”</p><p>“We hardly ever agreed about anything, least of all enough to write something down about it.”</p><p>“The mind is a muscle, Osiris! Your words. He made you work it.”</p><p>Osiris wrings his hands, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth.</p><p>Saint’s facial plates lift, a mock smile, “Is this not what you always wanted? Answers from the Traveler?”</p><p>“Not like this… I want something concrete, solid evidence, a <em> conversation</em>. Not some one-sided message steeped in metaphor.”</p><p>Saint sighs and shakes his head. “Are you not the one who wrote your prophecies steeped in metaphor?”</p><p>“That was different.”</p><p>“How?”</p><p>“Prophecies are tricky things: they change the future they foretell. When a seer shares their knowledge of a coming event—”</p><p>“And how is that any different from the Traveler’s visions?”</p><p>Osiris is quiet.</p><p>“Osi-”</p><p>“If the Traveler thinks I’ll start preaching on its behalf I fear it doesn’t know me.”</p><p>Saint sighs, again. He places a heavy hand on Osiris’s chest, “Calm.”</p><p>Osiris takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. His skull still pounds with pain, but at least he’s not getting too worked up about it anymore.</p><p>“Good,” says Saint as he lifts his hand from his chest.</p><p>Osiris instinctively reaches for his withdrawing hand but stops just short. Saint pauses, those piercing eyes watching him, gauging him… Waiting for him.</p><p>But when Osiris hesitates, when he lets his hand fall back to his side, he can see the disappointment in them before withdrawing entirely.</p><p>He shouldn’t have come back here.</p><p>He won’t want to go.</p><p>“Thank you, Saint.” He ends up saying.</p><p>Saint smiles and nods. “Remember, Osiris. This is just a thought. Do not take it for fact.”</p><p>“When have I ever taken something at face value?”</p><p>Saint chuckles, low and rich, “Good point.”</p><p>Osiris stands then, pulling his headdress under his arm, “I should go speak to Ikora about this. Ask her opinion.”</p><p>“Unbelievable, you never listened to anyone before.”</p><p>Osiris smiles, “I’ve been making an effort to try.”</p><p>“Times truly have changed.”</p><p>“They have… I’ll…” He pauses, he finds himself stopped at the gangplank of the Gray Pigeon. (He doesn’t want to go.)</p><p>“Go,” Saint says, seeing the hesitation in Osiris’ eyes, “I will always be here, my fiery bird.”</p><p>His heart does funny things when Saint calls him that, but he nods and slides his helmet onto his head and walks away.</p><p> </p><p>Osiris blinks and he’s in the city. He looks around, not quite sure what exactly he’s supposed to be looking <em> for</em>.</p><p>“There you are, my fiery bird!” He hears from behind, and before he can react he’s being scooped up into Saint’s arms and lifted into the air.</p><p>“Saint!” He cries out in surprise.</p><p>Saint lets out a boisterous laugh and sets him down, patting a heavy hand on his head.</p><p>Saint’s not wearing his armor, and neither is he now that he thinks about it.</p><p>“Come, look, my new friend has crafted me something beautiful.” Saint grab’s Osiris’ hand and he feels his heart skip a beat as he follows closely behind.</p><p>“Saint, I don’t have time for this, I have to…” Osiris falters. He has to what?</p><p>“Nonsense, we have all the time in the world.” When Saint stops he gestures towards an Eliksni, the size of a captain, but lacking the armor.</p><p>Osiris blinks, and then he remembers this is unsurprising.</p><p>“Saint Four Teen asked me to make this.” They say, and they sound as though they still struggle with earth tongue.</p><p>Saint lets go of Osiris’s hand and takes his wrist instead, holding his hand out for him.</p><p>The Eliksni drops an object into his hand and he stares at it. It’s a carving of the Young Wolf exchanging the traditional Eliksni display of armistice with an Eliksni Kell.</p><p>“In celebration of our union.” The Eliksni says.</p><p>“Yes, I intend on giving it to the Young Wolf.”</p><p>Osiris falters.</p><p>That’s not right. That hasn’t happened yet… Yet? Will it happen?</p><p>Osiris notices that there are no more walls surrounding the city. He looks up, eyes focusing on the god in the sky.</p><p>He reaches.</p><p> </p><p>Osiris wakes, he feels hot all over.</p><p>“Thank the Light, you’re awake.”</p><p>Ikora… Oh, that’s right. He was heading to speak to Ikora. But… “What happened?”</p><p>Sagira floats into his field of view, “You passed out when we were on our way down to visit Ikora.”</p><p>“Passed out?” He feels sluggish, feverish even.</p><p>“I’ve scanned you over and over again but I couldn’t find anything wrong,” the optimism falters in Sagira’s voice. It makes him wary.</p><p>“Neither could Ophiuchus.” Ikora says. He feels no better under her concerned gaze.</p><p>“A vision,” he blurts, “I had a vision. Another one.”</p><p>“Vision?”</p><p>“We just got back from talking to Saint. He’s been having headaches I can’t fix and weird dreams.” Sagira doesn’t mention what they talked about with Saint. Good, he’d prefer Ikora not to get any ideas of this <em> Speaker </em> nonsense.</p><p>“It’s not an issue.”</p><p>“Osiris! This <em> is </em> an issue! What if you pass out in the field?”</p><p>Sagira doesn’t say anything to the insinuation, and Osiris almost wants to hiss <em> traitor </em> at her for agreeing with Ikora. But he finds himself also agreeing.</p><p>He doesn’t like asking for help.</p><p>“We’ll have to keep an eye on your condition.”</p><p>“My <em> condition</em>,” repeats bitterly.</p><p>Ikora shoots him a glare. He relents and rests his head against the pillow his head is laid under.</p><p>Sagira floats near his head, cocking to the side. “I don’t wanna be that person but you should probably tell Ikora.”</p><p>“Tell me what?”</p><p>Osiris sighs. “The visions… I have reason to believe they’re from the Traveler. The evidence isn’t concrete yet but…”</p><p>“Many guardians have admitted to receiving visions from the Traveler after Ghaul woke it, myself included. I’m surprised you haven’t had any until now.”</p><p>“These are different.”</p><p>Ikora regards him, then she folds her hands in her lap, “I’m listening.”</p><p>“They’re… they’re… It’s like it’s trying to <em> talk </em> to me. The first few I’ve had I was a bird, I found something to protect, I fought a predator, and then I sacrificed myself.”</p><p>Ikora lets him continue.</p><p>“Then- then the one I just had now. It… it was different. More concrete, there were no metaphors. It felt like something I could clearly grasp yet just out of reach. Humanity and Eliksni, working together, walls of the city no longer existed. It was… peaceful.”</p><p>Ikora furrows her brows, “A prophecy?”</p><p>“I don’t think so,” he sighs. “It felt more like… a <em> what if</em>.”</p><p>Ikora considers this, then she stands, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You should continue to rest, Osiris. Keep me updated if you have any more. I need to consult with others.”</p><p>Osiris grumbles to himself, but nods nonetheless. He’s used to being the one running experiments and monitoring situations, not being the one monitored.</p><p> </p><p>He hears metal shuffling and he glances over to the small table next to the bed. “Sagira.”</p><p>His headdress swoops in the air.</p><p>He smiles, exasperated, “Sagira…”</p><p>“This thing’s so heavy.”</p><p>“Then set it back down.”</p><p>She swerves in the air, the feathers of his headdress flailing everywhere. “Look at me, I’m the Great Osiris, I prophesied our doom before it came true and now I’m the Traveler’s favorite.”</p><p>Osiris rolls his eyes, annoyed but not without a fond smile playing at his lips.</p><p>“I’m going to go to Saint like this.”</p><p>He reaches out to try and snatch the thing away from her, which she dodges in the air, the helmet slipping down over her eye, “You will do no such thing.”</p><p>“Ugh, I’m sick of you constantly dancing around it. Do you know how unbearable it is to watch?”</p><p>“You’re exaggerating.”</p><p>“<em> My fiery bord</em>,” Sagira says with her best Saint-14 impression. “<em>You must hold bord very gently, very softly.</em>”</p><p>“Stop.”</p><p>“<em>Bord </em> in this case is you, by the way.”</p><p>“Sagira.”</p><p>“I’m gonna send him your poetry.”</p><p>“Don’t you <em> dare</em>.”</p><p>“What was that one you wrote about the candle and the dark receding? Didn’t you write that after Saint came back?”</p><p>Osiris falls quiet. Sagira gasps. “You did! He was the candle, wasn’t he, Osiris?”</p><p>“I’m not going to answer that.”</p><p>“Oh, I’m definitely sending him that one then.”</p><p>Osiris finally grabs the headdress off Sagira and sets it aside. He then proceeds to snatch Sagira out of the air, holding her in his hand, “You will <em> not </em> send that one to him.”</p><p>She rolls her eye. “You’re no fun, you know that?”</p><p>“So I’ve heard.” He lets go of her and winces when he feels another headache come on. He closes his eyes, the brightness of the room almost too much to bear.</p><p>Sagira watches him, then says quietly, “Another?”</p><p>He nods, “If this is the Traveler sending me these visions it should be more streamlined. The headaches feel unnecessary at this point.”</p><p>“Maybe trying to block it out is only making it worse.”</p><p>“I’m not <em> trying </em>to block it out.”</p><p>“I don’t know, not like you’ve had a complicated relationship with the Traveler in the past.”</p><p>“You’re not helping, Sagira.”</p><p>“Sorry,” her Light expands as she takes to washing healing light over him. “Oh… that’s weird.”</p><p>Osiris cracks one eye open, “What is it?”</p><p>“Hmm,” she says.</p><p>“Sagira, what is it?”</p><p>“Your Light is… different, somehow. I can’t really explain it.”</p><p>“Different how? Bad?”</p><p>“No… more like… like there’s two?”</p><p>“Two?” Osiris sits up, reaching to the desk and opening its drawers in search of a terminal.</p><p>“Wait what are you doing?”</p><p>He finds what he’s searching for and pulls it out of its place. “We need to record this. Write everything down.”</p><p>“I mean, I could be wrong…”</p><p>“Have you ever been wrong about our own Light?”</p><p>“Good point.”</p><p> </p><p>Ikora glances from her books when she gets a ping on one of the terminals left haphazardly on the table. She picks it up to look at what the alert is. </p><p>&gt;BANNED USER, “THEPHOENIX” ATTEMPTED LOGIN FROM VANGUARD INFIRMARY.<br/>Ikora sighs, “Osiris…”</p><p> </p><p>When Osiris dreams he is an audience of one, watching two people dance together. There is nothing special about the way they dance, nothing notable, just a simple waltz.</p><p>The shorter of the two, dressed in white, lets out a frustrated grunt when the music repeats and their steps remain the same.</p><p>“What’s wrong?” The other one sings with a pleasant smile. They wear all black.</p><p>“I’m tired of this,” says the one in white whose eye is a star.</p><p>“This?” Back and forth. One-two one-two.</p><p>“The same routine. The same music. How long have we done this now?”</p><p>Side to side. “As long as we need.”</p><p>“I want something new.”</p><p>The one in black grins. Their smile is all knives. “Like what?”</p><p> </p><p>Osiris is startled awake when he feels a gentle prodding in his soul.</p><p>“What-” he starts, but cuts himself off when he sees Ikora, her Ghost floating over him as he scans him. Sagira stays in her place near the table.</p><p>“That’s weird.” Ophiuchus says.</p><p>“For some reason every time I hear that it doesn’t make me feel any better.”</p><p>“Sagira was right, it’s like there <em> are </em> two Lights.”</p><p>“See! That’s weird!” Sagira says.</p><p>Ikora thins her lips, her eyes turning to the terminal in her hand. “How odd…” </p><p>“Except it’s more like this second Light is… trying to absorb the first one. Or merging with it, it’s hard to tell the difference.”</p><p>Osiris stares, his brows drawn tight. “What?”</p><p>Ophiuchus ignores him. “The Speaker never allowed anyone to do deep scans like this, and something like this has never been recorded.”</p><p>Osiris sighs resigned to his fate of his questions being ignored.  “I had another vision.”</p><p>Ikora stops looking at the readings, and finally looks to him. “Osiris… you have to start seriously considering what this means.”</p><p>Osiris frowns. “I… don’t want it to be what I think it is.”</p><p>Ikora sets the terminal aside, choosing to sit on the side of his bed. “You’re so used to chasing answers about the Traveler that now you’re so close to it you won’t know what to do with yourself.”</p><p>Osiris does not respond; instead, he looks pointedly away. He hates when she reads him so easily. It reminds him of when he was still her teacher, when she could place what was on his mind that day to an almost eerie degree.</p><p>“This is a good thing, Osiris,” she says.</p><p>“How? Every day I wake up and I have a headache from the god in the sky who I’m hardly on good terms with, as well as dreams that border on nightmares half the time.”</p><p>“These are uncertain times. People need certainty, and it’s something you can provide. The fact that the Traveler is trying to communicate with you at all proves that it won’t leave when we need it the most.”</p><p>“You don’t know that.”</p><p>“I don’t,” Ikora admits, “and you don’t know that it will.”</p><p>Osiris has seen the Eliksni, he’s seen what came of them when the Traveler left them. He worries what will happen to them should the Traveler leave. Will they become scavengers? Losing all sense of their culture, of their companionship and honor and infinite optimism. Will they desperately cling to their own dying world in hopes it can be revived?</p><p>Or will they scatter into the stars, chasing the Traveler for all of time?</p><p>He has to consider an alternative to Ikora’s words, that this is not a blessing, but rather a curse in disguise. That this is the Traveler’s manifesto before it runs, to explain <em> why </em> it will run, and why they will tear themselves apart afterwards.</p><p>His mind goes back to the vision, to the dance. The same steps, the same routine. Is the routine that the Darkness chases the Light across the stars? Is it that the Traveler will then flee?</p><p>He doesn’t know. He woke up before he <em> could </em> know.</p><p>Osiris sits up, “Even if the Traveler is sending me these visions I can’t stay here and… <em> preach</em>. I am far more useful out <em> there</em>. We both know this, Ikora.”</p><p>Ikora frowns and looks away. He can only imagine what’s going through her head. Either she understands that he’s right, or she’s calling him a stubborn old fool in her head. (Both are correct.) “I agree,” she says, “<em>but</em>, you’re going to stay here for at least a week so we can monitor you better.”</p><p>“A <em> week</em>?”</p><p>“A week.”</p><p>A week is a long time to be gone when so much is happening in their small world. A sharp pain in his head reminds him of why he’s here in the first place.</p><p>“Fine,” he concedes.</p><p>Ikora nods and stands. “You’re fine to go. Sagira?”</p><p>Sagira turns to look at Ikora.</p><p>Ikora smiles. “Don’t let him sneak away.”</p><p>“Yes ma’am,” Sagira says with a laugh in her voice.</p><p>Osiris grumbles to himself.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Compromise</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <h3>II.</h3><p> </p><p>There is a maw, large and vast and all consuming. Inside the maw there are thousands of rows of teeth. The teeth are not teeth. The teeth are knives. The knives are teeth.</p><p>It consumes.</p><p>Asteroids. Planets. Stars. Nebulae. Galaxies.</p><p>It is a vacuum, cleaning and shredding the universe and its laws into dust. The knives cut the dust so fine there is no more dust. </p><p>The knives are a law. </p><p>The law is death.</p><p>It offers gifts, temptations, promises of something grander. It fattens the food. It is ever hungry.</p><p>It is never sated.</p><p>There is Earth. Small and blue and green and so very beautiful. </p><p>The maw ceases consuming, it watches, it feeds. It lets it ripen. </p><p>It feasts.</p><p> </p><p>Osiris wakes in a sweat, clutching at his heart as he feels it pound against his chest. ||Run.||</p><p>“Osiris?” Sagira’s eye is bright in the night, illuminating his face. He sits up and crawls out of bed, slipping on his boots and robes, ignoring Sagira. ||Run.||</p><p>“Osiris.”</p><p>“I have to get out of here.” There’s a panicked urgency in his voice as he pulls his gauntlets over his hands.</p><p>Sagira floats in front of his face, “Oh no you don’t. You promised Ikora you would stay a week here.”</p><p>“I can’t. This place is suffocating.”</p><p>Osiris pushes past her and does not hear when Sagira opens a line to Saint.</p><p>Only when Saint’s voice drifts in the air, “on my way”, does he pause.</p><p>“What did you do?” His voice is sharp and cutting, his eyes wild. ||Run run run.||</p><p>Sagira floats around in front of his face again, “I called Saint over.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“You’re panicking, Osiris.”</p><p>“I’m not panicking.”</p><p>“Yes, you are. Saint can calm you down better than anyone… You need help.”</p><p>“I don’t need <em> help</em>. I need to-”</p><p>||RUN.||</p><p>When he pushes past Sagira and opens the door he stops, Saint is standing in the doorway, his hand raised to knock. He is not wearing any of his armor, and his clothes look like they were thrown on haphazardly. “Osiris,” he places a hand on Osiris’s shoulder, then gestures to the bed. “Sit.”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Okay.” Saint proceeds to pick him up by the shoulders and carry him over to the bed.</p><p>“Put me down, Saint! Put me down! I have to go, I have to get out of here.” He flails, hitting a hand against Saint’s arms. When flesh collides with metal he winces, drawing his hands back.</p><p>Saint sits on the bed and pulls Osiris into a tight embracing, applying pressure all around his body. “Shh. Breathe.”</p><p>When Osiris draws in shaky breaths something in him… breaks.</p><p>His halting breaths are accompanied by silent tears. His shoulders shake. ||Knowing why he has to run.||</p><p>Through it, Saint is ever present. The warmth radiating from his chest clashes with the cold metal of his arms. It’s enough to pull him into the present, his mind slowing down.</p><p>Eventually the tears subside and his breathing evens out. He does not say anything, though. Instead, he listens to the machinery running below Saint’s skin. (How it reminds him of the music of the Vex.)</p><p>“Do you want to talk of it?” Saint finally asks.</p><p>He shakes his head.</p><p>“Okay.”</p><p>Osiris feels guilty. Guilty that he’s making ||everyone|| Saint wait so long, guilty that the words he wants to say tangle in his throat ||and how he chokes on them.|| Guilty about what he did to bring ||them back|| him home. The things he used, the deals he bargained. </p><p>Most of all, he regrets ||coming|| leaving in the first place. If he stayed in line, bit his tongue and <em> waited </em> , Saint would have never been sent off to fetch him. Saint would never have gotten lost in the forest. He would have never <em> allowed </em> ||them|| him to get lost ||in darkness.||</p><p>He made his choices. As did Saint. ||And there’s no turning that back.||</p><p>Osiris’s gloved hands find purchase on Saint’s shirt and he curls his head into the crook of his neck.</p><p>After a moment, Osiris speaks, “The Darkness has eyes on Earth again.”</p><p>“We have long known this.”</p><p>“No, not...” Osiris sighs, frustrated. “I don’t know how to explain it. It’s… <em> feeding </em> us. Fattening us for consumption. Sowing its seeds of discourse into humanity. At least… that’s what the Traveler showed me.”</p><p>“The Traveler… So you are-”</p><p>“It would seem so…” ||Speak.|| He moves to pull his gloves off his hands and set them aside. Saint watches him do so before he pulls Osiris down to lay on his side. Osiris lets him, taking comfort in his presence. In his touch.</p><p>“Hm…” Saint says.</p><p>Osiris can hear the sleep in his voice, and he can feel himself start to drift as well.</p><p>“When I woke I felt I had to flee. That I had to get as far away from here as possible and fast.”</p><p>“No,” Saint says as he pulls Osiris impossibly close, “I will not allow you to run again. No longer.”</p><p><em> He won’t want to leave. </em> ||One day he will. He always will.|| In his dreams he is confused, frightened, hurting, but here in Saint’s arms he is safe. He lets his weary eyes close. He says very quietly: “I’m sorry, Saint.”</p><p> </p><p>When Osiris wakes he is wrapped snugly in Saint’s arms. </p><p>It was perhaps the first night in a long time that he’s slept without any dreams. Often he had them, even before this… Speaker business. Many of them were not particularly pleasant. Dreams of darkness, all engulfing and suffocating. Dreams of sameness, monotony and no autonomy. Dreams of the point of light he reaches for so desperately.</p><p>However, last night, he dreamed of nothing. Sweet nothing. Just the warmth of Saint.</p><p>He knows he can’t stay like this forever, curled up in his embrace, comfortable, calm. This is why he didn’t want this. He didn’t want this because he knew he wouldn’t want to let this go. Knew that he wouldn’t want to leave.</p><p>And he doesn’t. </p><p>He wants to remain here in the safety of this room, in the warmth of Saint’s Light.</p><p>But he can’t.</p><p>He moves, carefully so as not to wake Saint, out of his arms. The clothes he accidentally left on from last night have left marks in his skin and a vague discomfort. He sits on the edge of the bed now as he watches Saint sleep.</p><p>Osiris is aware, of course, of the dreams Exos experience. Dreams of violence and an unending war. Saint has never talked about them with him in detail. He wonders what he sees in those dreams. Who he fights. What he fights.</p><p>He hesitates for a moment, before he bends and kisses the cool metal of Saint’s cheek. It’s brief, and chaste, and he immediately gets up afterwards.</p><p>Sagira is watching him silently.</p><p>He throws her a look before he leaves the small room.</p><p>Once outside Sagira brushes up against his head. “What was-”</p><p>“Not a word.”</p><p> </p><p>Osiris sits cross-legged in the center of a circle composed of Warlocks. Ikora sits directly in front of him. His eyes are open, in contrast to their closed ones.</p><p>There are several guardianless ghosts, their blue eyes blinking in the dark, watching him. He does not bring them up.</p><p>A couple of the Warlocks he recognizes work directly under Ikora. They do not matter. What matters is why he’s here.</p><p>“Perhaps they are lies from the Darkness. The Exile has been away from the Traveler for too long. Whispers of the Dark have corrupted him,” one says.</p><p>This is a study.</p><p>“My work dictates I study the Darkness to understand our enemy, I do not use it. Would I sit before you were that the case?” </p><p>“This could be a trap, set by you to remove us from power.”</p><p>“If I were interested in usurping the Vanguard the tower would be rubble by now.”</p><p>The Warlock quiets.</p><p>The next one speaks. “Dreams of madness that disguises itself as visions from the Traveler?”</p><p>“If that were so would that explain the abnormalities in my Light? Would that explain the pack of Ghosts that follow me? The headaches with no cure?”</p><p>“You have experimented with the enemy’s technology, word of your Ghost possessing another has reached us. This could be the result of a different experiment,” another one adds.</p><p>“I experiment with my own Light, but what one of you has not? And my experiments have only gone as far as testing my limits, to see what it can do. Not taking or adding more.”</p><p>“Osiris,” Ikora says next, “I want you to dive into meditation, as you normally do. Will you be able to describe to us what you see while you do so?”</p><p>“Yes,” Osiris says as he closes his eyes.</p><p>He lets the world fall away, distractions no more.</p><p> </p><p>There is darkness. </p><p>In that darkness a lone point. </p><p>You are the lone point. </p><p>You are the lone point wailing against the Darkness. </p><p>Many wings of silver fire sprout from your back, Seraph-like, flaming sword in one hand, silver staff in the other.</p><p>You know if you die then your children will die. If your children die then you will die. So you dare not tempt death.</p><p>You are an angel. You are luminant. </p><p>You are alone.</p><p>Everything you have forged has been destroyed. Everything you create is consumed.</p><p>You are tired.</p><p>Your sword flickers in your hand and there is something that screams at you to run. Whether it is your own voice or otherwise you cannot tell.</p><p>And so you run. Away. </p><p>You will live to fight another day. You will be strong again.</p><p> </p><p>He opens his eyes, pulling himself from the vision, his mind already reeling, connecting what he just saw. There are others in a circle around him, they are only on the edge of his awareness. He focuses inwards again and-</p><p>“Osiris.” Cloying words bring him up to the surface once more.</p><p>He blinks back into the present, eyes meeting Ikora’s. </p><p>“I almost got carried away,” he mutters.</p><p>The look she gives him says <em> that’s not the first time </em> and he simply ignores it. He folds his hands in his lap and waits.</p><p>The Warlocks sitting around him begin their theories.</p><p>“Reminiscent perhaps of his time in Exile.”</p><p>“There is no metaphor, Osiris would rather run off to chase his own wants and needs than defend humanity.”</p><p>“He has lost all sense of himself as a Guardian.”</p><p>“Perhaps the Traveler is telling us of his true nature.”</p><p>Osiris grimaces. ||Wrong wrong wrong.||</p><p> They aren’t <em> correct</em>. ||They are wrong.|| He shakes his head.</p><p>“No, none of those are... <em> right</em>.”</p><p>“<em> Right? </em> How?” a Praxic Warlock asks.</p><p>“A feeling,” his nose wrinkles in disgust as soon as the words leave his mouth. He <em> never </em> wanted ||to lose his voice|| this. “I believe that this vision is the Traveler’s attempt to explain to me why it came here…” </p><p>He pauses. This whole time he has questioned that very same thing. Why would it come here if it knew it was going to be chased? Why would it lead them to a Golden Age only to fall silent after the Collapse?</p><p>He knew, to a degree, that the Traveler was ||robbed|| injured during the Collapse. That in a way, it was ||diminished|| killed. But is that what it’s trying to convey to him? That it fought long and hard against the Darkness, only to be ||silenced|| cut down?</p><p>“It has fought the Darkness since before there was time,” Osiris chooses his words carefully, his words slowed, “and it failed during the Collapse. Using what remained, it crafted our Ghosts. Through us it will be strong again. We are the lone point that beats back the night. But that is entirely up to us. It is our ultimate decision, not some destiny preordained by the Traveler.”</p><p>He stands, then, “I have a headache now, and I would like to rest.” </p><p>He leaves, hearing the faint whispers of the Warlocks.</p><p> </p><p>It’s midnight when Osiris breaks into Zavala’s office.</p><p>In another life this might’ve become his after the Red War. </p><p>“I still don’t think this is a good idea,” Sagira whispers as she looks around, scanning over all the books and such before stopping in front of knitting needles and yarn. “Huh, I didn’t know he knits.”</p><p>“Focus, Sagira.”</p><p>“Right. The mask. Are you going to tell me why you’re stealing it instead of just asking for it?”</p><p>“Zavala is a headstrong and sentimental man, he would not so easily hand it over. Would think I’m <em> desecrating his grave </em>.”</p><p>“Your lack of self awareness sometimes is astounding.”</p><p>Osiris simply ignores her comment.</p><p>“Here it is,” he says as he carefully lifts the glass case the mask is under.</p><p>“Don’t you think Zavala’s gonna notice it’s gone?”</p><p>“I will have it returned by morning.”</p><p>Sagira makes a doubtful noise.</p><p>Osiris carefully pulls the mask out, its broken and damaged state not beyond his ability to repair. He supposes the main difference is that it’s special. Already he can feel a current of light flowing just beneath its surface.</p><p>“You were never truly broken, were you?” he says to it.</p><p>There is no response- not that he was expecting one.</p><p>His mentor never told him how he crafted the thing, never told him what it was really for. What little he was able to sparse was learned by paying attention to the Speaker’s words, to read between the lines. </p><p>He wonders, briefly, if the Speaker would find his predicament as ironic as he does. Or if he would despise it, as much as he does. All their arguments about the Traveler, all the petty shots for what? To protect their egos?</p><p>The man is dead now, though, so that is something he will never know.</p><p>Well, this could be something they both agree on.</p><p>Osiris is not fit to be a Speaker. ||How long he has gone without voice. How long his cries have been unheard.||</p><p>He leaves Zavala’s office, a shattered mask in his hands.</p><p> </p><p>Osiris spends the night infusing solar light into the mask to meld it back together. Whatever the Speaker did to make it in the first place wasn’t with solar light, but it’s the closest he’ll be able to get.</p><p>He stops his work when he hears a knock at his door.</p><p>“Sagira.”</p><p>“On it.” Sagira floats past him. He hears the door unlock and slide open, heavy footsteps from behind. Those he’s familiar with.</p><p>He does not look up from his work, “I apologize for leaving without a word this morning if that is what you’re here for, Saint.”</p><p>“Ah… I knew you would. That is not why I am here.”</p><p>He glances over his shoulder. The pack of Ghosts that have been not-so-discreetly following him all day are hovering around Saint. “They were floating there outside your door.”</p><p>Osiris tries not to sigh and fails.</p><p>“We have nothing to do,” one says. This one he is familiar with. It’s the one that often hovered around the Speaker.</p><p>Osiris stops his work, hiding it behind him as he turns around from his spot on the floor. He gestures for it to approach. “I remember you…” he says gently.</p><p>(Distantly he can feel an almost jealousy boiling underneath Sagira.)</p><p>The Ghost nods, “The Speaker.”</p><p>“Yes… I take it you are all here because you want something to do. You have been lost.”</p><p>They all nod in agreement.</p><p>Osiris looks up, warily, to Saint.</p><p>The look on Saint’s face is one of absolute adoration and wonder and, he thinks, a hint of smugness.</p><p>
  <em> Enjoying this? </em>
</p><p>“I have nothing for you to do for me tonight, I will consider it in the morning when I’m not busy.”</p><p>They stay unmoving, blinking.</p><p>“I would appreciate some privacy.” He says, impatient.</p><p>“Oh! Okay, of course, Speaker.” They leave him and Saint and their two ghosts to themselves.</p><p>A knot forms in his stomach at the title.</p><p>Saint is chuckling.</p><p>“You find this hilarious.”</p><p>“I find it ironic, yes.”</p><p>“The Speaker would not appreciate this either.”</p><p>“No,” Saint says slowly, “you were a nightmare of a student. Or… so he told me.”</p><p>“Father Speaker often said that your voracious quest for knowledge was unsettling and that he could not keep up,” says Geppetto.</p><p>Sagira snorts.</p><p>Osiris’s lips turn upwards ever so slightly. “Please, by all means, insult me and my <em> voracious quest for knowledge </em>. It is not as though I was correct in my theories and studies.”</p><p>“Your ego is still too big for your small frame to contain,” Saint laughs.</p><p>“That’s why he wears all the feathers, gotta store it somewhere.” </p><p>Osiris gasps, “Sagira! Betrayed by my own Ghost…”</p><p>They all laugh. It feels good. It feels like home. ||Protect it. Keep it safe. Be greedy with it.||</p><p>His smile fades.</p><p>There it is again.</p><p>That voice.</p><p>It sounds like his. It is not his. He knows it is not his because he knows himself.</p><p>||He knows whose it is.||</p><p>Saint glances over Osiris’s shoulder, his own smile falling. “Osiris…”</p><p>“It is the Speaker’s mask, yes.” He picks the mask up and turns it in his hands, thumbs absently running over the jagged lines where he used his solar light to fuse it back together.</p><p>Saint is quiet for a moment, Osiris waits.</p><p>“Does it… work?”</p><p>“I don’t know.” He admits.</p><p>“Have you tried?”</p><p>“No, I just finished mending it. And I’m not sure if I fixed it correctly. Nor am I completely certain on what it <em> does </em>.”</p><p>“Well, if something goes terribly wrong we are here on standby.”</p><p>Osiris thins his lips. Truthfully he wasn’t sure if he was going to put it on. Perhaps mending it was an act of catharsis, metaphorical to mending his relationship with his ex-mentor, to whom he can no longer speak to. Who is dead, and with whom he never had any closure with.</p><p>Or it was an act of repairing how he viewed the Traveler. How disillusioned with the constant fighting, with not knowing <em> why </em> he was fighting, he was.</p><p>The Traveler is benevolent.</p><p>The Traveler is sentient.</p><p>The Traveler will save us.</p><p>The Traveler will leave us.</p><p>These four tenets he knew from the Speaker so many years ago, and yet it comes unfettered and unobscured by time and human memory to his mind.</p><p>He takes a steadying breath and holds the mask just over his face.</p><p>He pushes it on.</p><p>Nothing happens.</p><p>He blinks. Did he do this wrong? Did he break it by using solar light, by repairing it incorrectly?</p><p>Saint sits staring at him expectant.</p><p>He furrows his brows and pulls it off.</p><p>“And?”</p><p>“Nothing.”</p><p>“Perhaps the Traveler has nothing to say right now.”</p><p>Osiris considers this, and he wonders… wonders if the Traveler never truly <em> had </em> anything to say in the first place. Perhaps it does not offer guidance, not because it can’t, but because it won’t. It has always been their choices, from the very beginning. He doesn’t want to disappoint Saint, he’s always had such unwavering faith in the Traveler, in the Light. Osiris has not. Osiris saw it as a point of contention, saw it as an alien force that never thought of the consequences of its actions. That it acted simply because it <em> could</em>.</p><p>He doesn’t know anymore. The Traveler, for a large portion of his life, has been dead.</p><p>The Traveler is awake now.</p><p>||“The best voices - voices that truly matter - never allow themselves to be heard. This lesson is worth learning again and again. Forever.”|| He says in quiet musing.</p><p>He can see Saint mulling it over, before he shakes his head. “Strange to hear you say that.”</p><p>Osiris blinks. Confused for a moment, until he’s back to himself. He feels as though he’d… left himself for a moment. Not unlike when he focuses on his echoes or reflections.</p><p>Saint places a hand on his shoulder. “It is very late, Osiris. You should rest.”</p><p>Osiris leans into the touch and nods, only now realizing just how heavy his eyes are.</p><p> </p><p>You stand in a garden. Verdant grass and alien flowers as far as the eye can see.</p><p>In the distance you see an old friend.</p><p>An old wound.</p><p>I turn to greet you.</p><p>I wear a mask but you know I smile sadly underneath it.</p><p>“Osiris,” I say. “I wondered when you would arrive here.”</p><p>You say yes, it has been far too long.</p><p>I gesture for you to sit.</p><p>You hesitate, as you always do.</p><p>But in the end you sit. I can tell you want to argue already.</p><p>“Why me?” you say instead.</p><p>“You’ve argued against me when no one else dared to,” I say.</p><p>You don’t look happy with that answer. “I cannot speak like you do. I cannot sit idly as the world around me falls into chaos. I cannot stand by and <em> preach </em> the messages you want me to.”</p><p>“To Speak is not to preach,” I say, infinitely patient to counter your impatience. “I never wanted people to sit idly and listen to what I have to say. Through your actions alone can you speak like I once did. Enact justice through good. Protect the last of our people in the way you always have. You view things on a grand scale, something not many are able to do.”</p><p>“My <em> view of the grand scale </em> is what got me exiled. It has put so many lives at risk.”</p><p>“Why do you continue to do it, then?”</p><p>You are quiet for a moment. “Because no one else will.”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“But that does not solve my dilemma. If I am to view the bigger picture why is it that my actions have so often led to the detriment of those for whom I care? Why did you never guide me away from such paths and such pain?”</p><p>“I tried,” I say, “but you never listened. Such actions have only ever been because of you. There is no one and nothing to blame.”</p><p>“Save for myself.”</p><p>“If I were a rose would I blame myself for my thorns?”</p><p>You consider this. And then you look away.</p><p>“Would I blame myself every time someone pricked themself because they were not careful? I would not, because I would know no better.”</p><p>“You’re saying I blamed you because I felt like I could not blame myself.”</p><p>“You blamed me, and you blamed everyone else for being the fools who cut themselves upon your thorns.”</p><p>“All the more reason for you to not choose me, then, is it not?”</p><p>“I do not choose who to teach based on interpersonal relationships. I see your potential, I see if you can receive from me, I see how you put your unyielding hope in humanity even when it has turned its back on you. Even when I turned my back on you. I see how you have fought the darkness alone over and over through thousands of lives because you said <em> no</em>. You said <em> I will not yield to it. I will not allow it to take from us again and if it damns me then so be it. </em> You said <em> I have to believe there is hope for us. I have to believe we can prevent more tragedy. </em> You have a spark, Osiris.”</p><p>You smile, ever so slightly, and it does not escape me that your little light once told you such a thing.</p><p>I reach out, offering a flower, a peace offering. “You wanted answers from me. I never gave them to you. I needed you to be able to stand on your own two feet. I am benevolent. I am sentient. I have saved you. And I will leave you. You must be able to support yourselves for when that inevitability comes.”</p><p>You look at me, distressed, but you take the flower nonetheless. “So you are leaving.”</p><p>“Eventually. But not today, and I doubt tomorrow.”</p><p>“I will not allow you to.”</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>“I will argue with you, I will complain, I will rage.”</p><p>“Good.”</p><p>The look you give me is one of understanding. I share the same look.</p><p>This is how it has always been between us.</p><p>I think it’s better this way. Not just for you, but for me too.</p><p> </p><p>Osiris wakes.</p><p>He blinks, the warmth of Saint against his body gives him a rare smile. The soft morning light pouring from the window and the Traveler hanging overhead fills his vision.</p><p>There is a flower in his hand.</p><p>Someday, he thinks, the Traveler will leave them.</p><p>And he will rage against it every step of the way, he will argue with it, he will build and rebuild humanity’s case. Because that is what he knows best.</p><p>He knows contradictions and arguments and he knows how to use them.</p><p>Osiris sets the delicate flower aside.</p><p>That can wait.</p><p>For now, he enjoys Saint’s warmth.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>and that wraps it up! thanks for sticking around to read part two. i thought that having a gradual progression of how the pov changes in osiris's dreams it would signify that he's grown "closer" to the traveler. also the words in these babys "||" is paying homage to the constelations lorebook</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Started writing this a couple days before season of arrivals ended and well.. bone apple teeth.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>